VERONIQUE DE RUGY: Athens On The Potomac. “When the markets do lose confidence in a government’s fiscal rectitude relative to others, a crisis can arise quite quickly, forcing countries into painful political decisions. And this could very well happen to the United States. . . . And don’t forget, the United States has a far shorter maturity of government debt than most other countries, meaning that even if it weren’t borrowing extra cash it would have to issue a large chunk of new stuff over very short periods of time. In other words, the United States is like an addict always looking for his next fix.”